


Beyond Pictures

by AMidnightDreary, Rabentochter



Series: Frostiron Advent Calendar 2019 [20]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Embarrassment, First Dates, Flirting, Happy Ending, Inspired by Love Actually, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Pining, Sweet Loki (Marvel), Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21870817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMidnightDreary/pseuds/AMidnightDreary, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabentochter/pseuds/Rabentochter
Summary: Tony films at Thor and Jane's wedding, and Loki can never ever see that video. But then he stands in front of Tony's door and demands just that, so Tony's fucked.
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: Frostiron Advent Calendar 2019 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558924
Comments: 52
Kudos: 332





	Beyond Pictures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [STARSdidathing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/STARSdidathing/gifts).



> I watched Love Actually and couldn't help it. Oops? 
> 
> We hope you like it, Stars!! 💕

Loki is standing in front of Tony's door. Loki has never stood in front of Tony's door before, and Tony doesn't even want Loki to be standing in front of his door. In fact, he doesn't want to see Loki at all, because that makes it easier to ignore the fact that he actually wants to see Loki  _ all the time. _

“Hello,” Loki says, raising a brow. He’s probably confused because Tony spent almost a minute staring at him.

“Hi,” Tony says. “Uh. What do you want?”

Loki sighs. His hands are hidden in the pockets of his thick coat and he's wearing an (adorable) green beanie that matches his (gorgeous) green eyes, and all in all he looks just too freaking perfect. That's not fair, is it? Tony wishes he hadn't opened the door.

“It's very nice to see you, too,” Loki replies dryly. “Don't worry, you won't have to endure my company for long. You were filming at the wedding, weren't you?”

Oh, shit.

Tony stares at Loki for a moment, then says, “Er. Yes. But - but I thought your parents booked that guy -”

“Oh, they did, yes. A very professional man, who somehow managed to deliver a very unprofessional video." Loki rolls his eyes. “I doubt that Thor and Jane want a wedding video in which everything is blurry and tinted purple, and I saw you filming at the wedding, so I thought -”

“No,” Tony blurts out.

Loki looks at him, completely unimpressed by Tony's gruff tone. “Pardon?”

“I don't - I don't have it anymore, okay? I deleted it. So you can go.”

Loki's brow shoots up again. “Are you telling me that you, genius and IT specialist extraordinaire, do not know how to restore a deleted file?”

_ Damn.  _ “Yes,” Tony says. “I'm telling you that.”

Loki narrows his eyes. Now he  _ is _ starting to get irritated. “I  _ knew _ that you can't stand me, and I don't hold it against you, but I wouldn't have thought you detested me so much that you're pretending to be  _ unable _ to do something.”

Tony swallows around the lump in his throat. He is torn between frantically apologizing and slamming the door in Loki's face, but does neither.

“Fine,” he says in the end. “Alright, okay. I can - I'll see what I can do.”

“How kind of you,” Loki replies with a bitter look in his eyes that makes Tony wince inwardly, and maybe he's distracted by that, because suddenly Loki walks past him into Tony's apartment and suddenly he is  _ in _ Tony's apartment and he should not be in Tony's apartment  _ under any circumstances _ .

He's here now, though.

Loki in Tony's hallway, keeping on his shoes and getting muddy snow everywhere because he's a bit of an asshole like that and honestly has every right to be. Loki in Tony's living room, take off his beanie and running a hand through his wonderfully tousled hair. Loki walking straight to Tony's laptop, rubbing his hands against each other to warm them up. Loki  _ in Tony's apartment. _

Hell, Tony will never be able to get the image out of his mind.

A heavy sigh pulls Tony out of his ridiculously smitten and also very panicked thoughts, and he sees Loki bending over his laptop. Tony was working when Loki rang the bell, and he left his laptop on the sofa table. The screen is still brightly lit, the traitor.

“You didn't even delete it,” Loki says with a sigh, sitting down on the sofa.

“Oh,” Tony says. “I, uh. Really?” He feels like the biggest idiot on Earth.

Loki glances at him - oh god, he’s starting to get angry. That happened a few times before, Loki getting so fed up with Tony’s antics that he told him to shut it. Tony can’t do anything but stare at Loki dumbly, and after a moment Loki turns back to the laptop. 

That’s even worse.

Loki clicks on the icon on the home screen that's titled “Thor & Jane”, which is the most inaccurate title Tony could have possibly chosen. Loki fishes a thumb drive out of his coat pocket and is ready to use it, but then he glances at the screen where the Most Mortifying Video In History is now playing. Loki frowns and stills and watches, and Tony wonders if this is a good moment to change his name and emigrate to New Guinea.

The video begins harmlessly enough. There's Jane, walking down the aisle on her father's arm and looking absolutely breathtaking, and then there's Thor, looking even more like an overjoyed and overgrown puppy than usual, and then - yeah, and then.

There's Loki, standing close to Thor in his spot as the first man, and somehow he's the only thing you see for the next few minutes. Loki in his criminally well-fitting suit, and all of Loki's eye-rolls and smirks and actual happy smiles. 

Tony even muted Thor and Jane's vows.

“Oh,” Loki says, frowning, and Tony kind of wants to die.

It goes and on. Tony filmed during the whole reception, and there's Loki. And there's Loki, too, and there and there and there - fuck, he's the only thing you see  _ in the whole video. _ Loki dancing with his mother, with Jane, Loki scowling at the buffet, laughing at something Natasha said. Loki fiddling with his tie and holding his speech and standing alone in an empty corner of the big room. 

Loki was all Tony could see that whole day, and the video shows it clear as day.

“I don't understand,” Loki says, his voice confused and more quiet than Tony has ever heard it. And he  _ does _ understand, Tony’s pretty sure that he does; Loki is too clever not to understand. “I can't even remember a single time you were nice to me.”

Finally, Tony moves. He goes and flips the laptop shut with much more force than necessary. 

“That's probably not the wedding video they want, right?” He asks, already walking away to his desk, as if that was far enough to hide him from Loki's bewildered gaze. “Not what you were looking for, so - you can leave.”

“Tony -”

“ _ No,  _ you - just go.” Tony can't look at him. He places his laptop on his desk and forces himself to take a breath. “I'm sorry, but - Please.”

And thank god, Loki actually goes.

Tony still stands frozen in place minutes after he heard the door fall shut, but eventually he drops into his desk chair. He's never felt this embarrassed and pathetic in his whole life, and that means something, because his father spent Tony's whole childhood making him feel embarrassed and pathetic. 

Now he also feels like a complete asshole, though, like he made a mistake he'll never be able to fix, and he hates it.

He hates it a lot.

The thing is this: Tony isn't good at this sort of thing. He  _ knows _ that he isn't good at this sort of thing. He tried that one time, for Pepper, but that crashed and burned quite spectacularly after, what? Ten months? And Tony was like, no thank you, we're not doing this again, and then he buried himself in his work because showing his snobby asshole parents that he could get by on his own was much more important than his love life, anyway.

And it is, really. Tony managed something he never thought he would - he actually has a  _ life  _ now. A life that's entirely his own, that's not defined by his last name or piles of money that don't even belong to him, a life he  _ enjoys. _ He has a job he likes, he has friends, he's fine. Absolutely fine.

And then there's Loki. The brother of a friend that isn't even one of Tony's  _ best _ friends but the friend of one of his best friends and yes, it's all Bruce's fault, anyway. He  _ asked _ Tony to come with him. Tony didn't want to go, he never wanted any of this, but he's never had a say in the matter, okay? It had taken just one night at Thor's, one damned evening with a bad movie and card games and far too many potato chips, and Tony was lost.

Loki is a fucking  _ epiphany. _ He's everything, and Tony's been in love with him for almost four years now. Even though he didn't want to be in love ever again, even though he's a mess, even though Loki deserves so much better.

Being an asshole to Loki is easier than trying to have something that won't work out, anyway.

The (second) thing is this: Loki is standing in front of Tony's door again.

And Tony stares at him again, because there's not much else he can do. He spent the whole last week doing nothing but cursing himself and eating chocolate. 

Loki is wearing the same beanie.

“Are you free?” Loki asks.

“What?” Tony says.

“Right now,” Loki says, slowly. “The next - well, two or three hours, maybe. Do you have time?”

Tony doesn't know what Loki wants. Is Thor back from his honeymoon? Thor nearly hit Tony a few times for being rude to his little brother, anyway. Tony thinks that Thor would definitely hit him now, for being stupid and creepy on top of being an asshole. But that wouldn't take two or three hours; that wouldn't even take five minutes. Maybe -

“Tony,” Loki says, a little impatient.

Tony swallows and, before thinking it through, nods. “Yeah, I - yes. I mean, I'm free.”

“Wonderful,” Loki says. “Get your coat, then. We're going on a date.”

Tony thinks his ears are malfunctioning. “We're what?”

“Going on a date. Because that's what you - and do tell if I have misunderstood things, though I don't believe I have. That's what you have been wanting, yes?”

Tony stares at Loki, who is apparently asking him out.  _ Asking him out.  _

Loki waits, more or less patiently, until Tony is done with staring at him. He still looks too freaking perfect, and Tony shouldn't,  _ can't _ do this to him.

“No,” he says. “No, I - look. It's not - not a good idea.”

Loki meets his eyes, calm and skeptical. “And why not?”

“Because -”  _ Yeah, Tony, try to wrap up all your problems and complexes in a few sentences, I dare you.  _ “Because I was awful to you? Because I've never been not awful to you?”

“Ah.” Loki nods, probably thinking that that's actually a valid argument. “Yes, you were. Then again, I am awful to a lot of people, too. Mostly because people are idiots, but also because being awful to them is the easiest thing. Especially when they are important to me.” He cocks his head to one side. “Does that sound familiar?”

“Uh,” Tony says. “Actually - yes.”

“Lovely. Then maybe we can go now and have our first  _ proper _ conversation without being awful to each other, hm? I don't want to spend the entire afternoon on your doorstep.”

“Right,” Tony says, feeling absolutely dumbstruck. “I'll just, uh - get my coat.”

What is happening.

They go out.  _ That _ is happening, they're going out on a date. They sit in a tiny café with mismatched chairs and ugly pictures on the walls, and Tony pays for Loki's tea(s) and also for his muffin, because that's the least he can do. And they talk. It's a little awkward, but they manage to forget about that after some time - because, surprise, they actually get along quite well. Tony likes Loki's humor and the way he talks, like everything can be a good story if you just take the time and look at it from the right perspective. (Loki uses words like Tony uses programming commands.) Loki can be a bit weird, maybe even mean, but all in all he's just fun to be around, and Tony  _ likes  _ him.

But well, Tony knew that already. What he  _ didn't _ know and also didn't expect is this: Loki likes him, too.

Tony isn't stupid; he can tell when someone enjoys listening to him, or if a laugh is genuine. And Loki's laugh  _ is _ genuine, just like his smiles, and he seems… He seems like he's having fun, that's all. Meanwhile, Tony feels still a little bit like he hit his head on something, because this can't possibly be  _ real. _

“I, uh,” he says when they are already on their way to Loki's subway station, “I had fun.”

Loki looks at him, clearly amused. “Me too. You’re quite pleasant company when you’re not trying not to be.”

Tony’s too stunned by this whole thing to understand sentences like that, so he just says, “Right. I mean, uh - thanks. You too.” 

God. Usually Tony is good at flirting, promise. 

Thankfully, Loki just laughs. “Why, thank you.”

Tony clears his throat. “And I  _ am  _ sorry, for - you know.”

“The video?”

“Yes. That.”

“It's fine,"”Loki says, chuckling. “Charming, even, in a… slightly creepy way.”

Tony huffs. “It's  _ literally _ the most embarrassing thing I've ever done.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I didn't  _ mean _ to do it, you know. But I just -”

They reach the subway station and stop walking. Loki turns to Tony with a smile on his lips. “Yes?”

Tony shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and lifts his shrugs. “I don't know. I just couldn't help it. You're beautiful, you know.”

Loki lets out an almost surprised laugh and looks away for a second. There's a faint blush on his cheeks, and Tony has to grin. 

“Careful,” Loki says when he looks at Tony again, still smiling. “It's starting to get much less creepy and more charming.”

“Good, then I'm finally doing something right.”

“Yes,” Loki agrees. “I do think so.” He glances around briefly, but meets Tony's eyes again when he says, “We could… do this again, then? Soon?”

Tony's already nodding. “Yes. Soon.”

“Next Saturday?”

“Works for me.”

Loki leans down and kisses Tony's cheek before he turns and leaves, and Tony is grinning so brightly that he's going to strain a muscle or something. 

_ So _ worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find the art on tumblr [here.](https://rabentochter.tumblr.com/post/189771836509/beyond-pictures-with-amidnightdreary-for-stars)
> 
> And something off-topic:
> 
> Dear 1111,  
> Sorry, but we saw your comment before you deleted it. I (Midnight) would like to thank you for standing up against the abuse of italics, that was very brave of you! But I'm afraid we'll continue using them however we deem best. Also, Rabentochter would like to point out that she can't hear your whining. Thanks so much for reading all our stuff this month! :)


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